Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/668

656 to the free form of government of the United States; nor can I conceive any augmentation of the danger, equivalent to an exercise of the power of distributing wealth by law. If, therefore, these essays should only prove, that it is the office of a republican government to protect, but not to bestow property, they may protract the period during which our government may remain the servant of the nation. For as worldly omnipotence is annexed to a power of dealing out wealth and poverty, nations are universally retributed for the folly and impiety of submitting to this species of human providence, by a divine decree, that it shall unexceptionably convert these servants into masters and tyrants.